Okay, so I’ve got an Ajax Water Pump to restore and run with the Lister; my Father-in-law’s old power hacksaw to get back into running condition and drive with the Ronaldson Tippett N and an old Villier’s 2 stroke motor that I’m not even sure what I’m going to do with, but I needed another motor.

I would really like a horizontal, wouldn’t everybody? Or the next choice is a diesel, for a change.

I spied an ad in T.O.M.M. for an upcoming Auction at Shepparton “A lifetime of collecting” at Col Andersons, so I got on the web and looked at the pics on his webpage, downloaded the auction list, went through it and sat back waiting for auction day to come around.

Three weeks before the Shepparton auction Coley, my father-in-law, spotted an ad in the local paper for an upcoming auction at Maldon which included: a Lister 10hp diesel, and numerous other engines and miscellaneous items. So the next weekend we headed off in his ute with the trailer in tow, hoping to bring back something.

Had a good look around before the auction got underway, there was the Lister 10hp CS twin cylinder diesel in good original condition ($475); a Roseberry hopper cooled 2hp?, very rusted and seized ($85); another Rosebery tank cooled model, missing carby and exhaust but free, no spark ($30); a Moffat Virtue 2hp? hopper cooled, complete, free, no spark ($75); numerous Villiers; a couple of other multi-cylinder motors and over in the corner of one shed, under years of dust, a partly dismantled Lister CS 6hp diesel, head was off, missing rocker gear and injector but the bore looked good and it was not seized.

Bidded on the Lister 10hp but another young collector was keener than me so I then decided the single cylinder was mine. Bidding started at $100 and that was it, I bought it. When the auctioneer moved to another part of the property, we manuevered my latest acquisition out of the shed, rolling it on its flywheels to the trailer and winched it on. Forgot that the head wasn’t bolted on and tied a strap around the cylinder and pulled it off - whoops. So we removed the piston from the conrod, wrapped the strap around the crankcase and successfully pulled it up onto the trailer.

We had just loaded it on when a chap came up to me and mentioned that one of the old motors had a broken crankshaft. Looked in the top and sure enough a nice big crack was visible at the back bearing housing. If the drive flywheel is the front then the other one must be the back, right?

Seems it was originally part of a Start-O-matic set and had been taken up to Durham Ox and mounted in an old shearing shed which was being used as a weekender. Bolted only to the wooden floor of the shed, after six months of weekend running the vibration was a bit much for the crankshaft and it broke.

A minor setback I thought, definitely a long term project to see this diesel running again, but I’m determined to have it operational before I go looking for the next project.

The chap who told me about the broken crankshaft, turned out to be deceased owners son, Greg, and the conversation quickly turned to him quizzing me on how long I’ve been collecting engines, what I do with them, why I do it, etc. Then out of the blue he told me he had the same motor at home, part of his old generating plant, would I be interested in it? Yeah, I wouldn’t mind another one. He then went on to tell me, it was a complete Lister Start-O-Matic Generating Set but it had blown the head gasket about 12 months ago and he got onto another, bigger generating plant, so it had been dragged out of the shed and put undercover. He assured me it was in good condition, even had the original paintwork. So sight unseen, and at a price I was more than happy to pay, we shook on it and said I’d call him during the week and hopefully be down the following weekend to pick it up.

During the week I got onto the web and looked up as much information as possible on Lister Diesels, at this stage I still didn’t know if these motors were CS, CD or what models, so I just read and printed out everything I could find.
After I got the photos developed I emailed them off to Peter Forbes in the UK, and he informed me I had a Lister CS Diesel and how to read the serial number - thankyou Peter.

The 6hp stayed on the trailer all week, in front of the shed while I made up a workshop trolley to put it on. Then Saturday was here, tee-ed up with Glenn, my brother-in-law, to borrow him and the tandem trailer so went out to his farm in the morning, hooked up the trailer and loaded in all manner of chains, blocks of wood, 2 steel ramps, a block & tackle, pinch bar, etc. A quick cuppa and we were off to Maldon.

Now check out the Lister CS 8hp Start-O-matic page.